D&D 4E 4E Halflings unrecognizable from Tolkien hobbits

[GreatLemur]

I don't think the pictures look like dreadlocks, honestly. It looks more like braids to me.

Yeah, that's been confusing me, too. I haven't seen Races & Classes, but the 4e halfling art I've seen doesn't really look like what people in this thread are describing. Actually, I really wish it did. I like dreads. I don't like the whole '70s braid thing this guy has going on.

 

[DJCupboard]

First off, I'm such a Tolkien fanboy, I can't believe I'm going to say this: I like the new fluff, way better than the hobbit rips we got in past editions.

Hobbits work in Tolkien because for him they represent the idealized everyman; quiet folk who just want a normal life of hard work and close friends in their non-industrialized setting. They were the straight man we were to identify with as an introduction to his otherwise fantastic world.

In D&D the humans are already our grounding point, so hobbits wouldn't be enough of a unique human abstraction.

The gypsyish riverfolk vibe, on the other hand, is very cool and holds its own niche. They remain behind the scenes (like Tolkien's hobbits) compared to the rest of the races, but it's more subtle than the "leave me alone, I'm not even fully aware you're there" vibe of the Tolkien Hobbits. It's a persuasive culture that has endured longer than any of the other races' empires, because it has strived to stay behind the scenes. A folksy merchant empire, an extension of the gypsy caravans of eastern europe (and to some extent, of Irish culture, as well.)

I have no problem with the curls (or dreads, or whatever), but the art in R&C doesn't look like anything other than more humans when they aren't standing next to anything.

The art below fits nicely with the gypsy connection and gives off a halfling sense of scale (though I can't tell what this artist is doing differently to make it happen).

My mental conception of Halflings has been informed by a few key pieces of art - most recently this one:

While they're not the stout Hobbits of old, they're also not the tiny dreadlocked humans Dungeons & Dragons has occasionally embraced. I like this depiction of them - their child-like proportions allows one to tell they're small, despite the lack of reference, yet their adult features allow one to distinguish them from children. I'll probably rely on illustrations like these to depict halflings in my campaigns, rather than the official art we've seen so far.

Also, what happened to riding dogs? It's not a big deal, but I was fond of them...

 

[Mercule]

Conversely, I couldn't be happier that Tolkien's hobbits are dead and buried. They are the one thing more than anything else that feels like an unexcusable ripoff from Middle-Earth, and they simply do not belong in Dungeons & Dragons.

I totally agree. I don't think that there have been any version of halflings (other than very campaign specific ones, like Dark Sun and Eberron) that are any better than Tolkien. Kender may have been worse.

3E halflings don't add anything to the game. They're only there for legacy purposes and the "culture" presented is laughable. They're little gypsies. Actually, they're more like humanoid parasites without anything of their own and living off the scraps of humanity.

After reading R&C, 4E halflings are worse. They just ooze the notion "we wanted a short PCs race, but don't like gnomes. Here, have some little Cajun hicks." The river/marsh association feels forced and "just because" WotC wanted terrain association.

I'm not exactly a gnome fan, but that race at least has something resembling a personality. It is completely incomprehensible to me that anyone could see halflings are more worthy of inclusion than gnomes. Again, I'm not really saying that gnomes should be included, just that they should be higher on the food chain than halflings.

Thinking about what I just wrote, though, I do see an iconic role for halflings, but I can't imagine WotC is going to run with it. I said 3E halflings are like parasites. That would be a great angle for them to embrace. They are sneaky fringers who really do live off the droppings of the other races. Being too small to ever be a martial power, or to even stand up in a war, they have attached themselves to the successes of others. If I do decide to go the path of least resistance and include halflings in my 4E game, this is how I'll use them.

 

[Panamon Creel]

Originally posted by Clavis
I would still prefer something close to the common conception of Hobbits to be D&D's baseline for Halflings, however. Otherwise, there is simply no reason for them to exist.

I agree 100%. Halflings don't have to be hobbit clones, but they should bear some resemblance so people know what they are. Otherwise, why not just abandon them for some random new race? What purpose do they serve? Are they just the "short race" now that gnomes are dead (or maybe "the short, but not-so-short race" now)?

Originally posted by Johnny
If I were to redesign halflings, I would be happy to keep the thinner 3e look but I would try to pick some other physical trait to define them.

I agree that these halflings are greatly lacking a dominant physical trait. Dwarves have beards, elves/eladrin pointy ears, tieflings apparently all have ram horns and tails now, but halflings really don't have anything. This is why I think the hairy feet should have stayed. You get rid of that and all halflings have is shortness to define the race.

Originally posted by mhacdebhandia
Why would you want to start a new player by clinging to the oldest and most limited tropes available?

Because there is no baseline to start from; no common ground to give new players a set of expectations about the shared setting. If you want to delineate from that baseline in other worlds or supplements (like Eberron or Dark Sun), cool. But the starting point should have at least some resemblance to the most popular and dominant fantasy world- Tolkien.

I agree with Clavis's excellent points on this argument.

Originally Posted by Zamkaizer
Also, what happened to riding dogs? It's not a big deal, but I was fond of them...

Ha. I forgot about the dogs. Yeah, the dogs were actually pretty cool.

 

[Henry]

I do have a question: I wonder how many teenaged lovers of fantasy even KNOW what hobbits are? I wonder if the consumer market is so small on that point that they're not a majority? If so, it makes perfect sense to replace them with something closer to the public image of a short near-human race is, assuming the new look is it.

 

[Piratecat]

I said 3E halflings are like parasites. That would be a great angle for them to embrace. They are sneaky fringers who really do live off the droppings of the other races. Being too small to ever be a martial power, or to even stand up in a war, they have attached themselves to the successes of others.

Alas, this never worked too well for Gully Gnomes.

 

[Panamon Creel]

Originally Posted by Jhulae
I don't think the pictures look like dreadlocks, honestly. It looks more like braids to me.

Ok, maybe I was wrong about dreads. But braids, dreads, whatever, they are terrible.

Maybe if it was just a few halflings, but every picture has them. And the reasoning that halflings have kinky hair, is strange. It was like the designers said, well we need to explain why every halfling has cornrows, so I guess they have curly hair. I get the feeling the designers let a few pieces of concept art dictate the whole conception of the race without much thought.

Be honest- look at the halfling figher on pg. 15 of R&C, or on pg. 43. If it wasn't for the caption telling you what race the pics depicted, would you recognize them as halflings?

 

[I'm A Banana]

The gypsyish riverfolk vibe, on the other hand, is very cool and holds its own niche. They remain behind the scenes (like Tolkien's hobbits) compared to the rest of the races, but it's more subtle than the "leave me alone, I'm not even fully aware you're there" vibe of the Tolkien Hobbits. It's a persuasive culture that has endured longer than any of the other races' empires, because it has strived to stay behind the scenes. A folksy merchant empire, an extension of the gypsy caravans of eastern europe (and to some extent, of Irish culture, as well.)

The fluff ain't gonna sell 'em. Various races have been occupying this niche for years, and it's kind of weird for halflings to be being pushed into it.

Now, they had something cool going on with the 3e caravan-hobbits. The "gypsy" archetype is a good fantasy one to work with, and aside from the Vistani in Ravenloft, largely overlooked in D&D. You could still imagine a group of them settling down and getting fat and lazy just because it was so easy to farm a garden rather than wander around on a caravan -- The Shire could still exist as a sort of anomolous backwater.

But taking them off the land, into the rivers, is a weird move. Nothing about the halfling says "aquatic!" at all. Nothing really says "Mercantile!" either. It's another example of 4e trying to create a new fantasy archetype out of nothing. Well, not entirely. The archetype of "riverboat merchant people" does exist, it's just not a halfling-based archetype. So it's more an example of 4e choosing to ignore previous sacred cows and just do what they think will work. Which might, or it might not. Time will tell if the 4e river-halfling will stick.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Unfortunately, the idea of the underdog/common man rising to greatness (and no it's not the same as the greatness was always there, just hidden) is apparently "unfun" and has been dropped in favor of "1st-level bad as$" in 4e.

Not really, I think people just realized that basically all PC hobbits are carbon copies of one another, since thats about the ONLY personality of adventuring hobbit that makes sense. Its even more pathetic than AxeBeard MacHammerAle, the scottish dwarf stereotype. Your average Drizzt clone has more depth. I'm sure everyone did it once in nineteen dickity two with an onion tied to their belt... so lets give the poor things a rest.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I do have a question: I wonder how many teenaged lovers of fantasy even KNOW what hobbits are?

Probably about as many as fans of sci-fi who know what jedi are. We did have 3 movies fairly recently that you'd have to be living in a cave as a fantasy fan not to be familiar with.

Now how many teenagers get excited about the prospect of playing chubby, stay at home, dull farmers.... well thats an entirely different matter.